I know many people have probably heard this but my name is Jeffrey how can I say my name in Esperanto. Also let this be a forum for other people to pronounce their names as well.

There are two main ways I've seen it done. One is just simply keeping your name the way it is; exp Acobjum. Another is adding an o or a vowel that sounds good; exp Acobjumo/Acobgxumo.

Also, from what I've read, you have a choice between keeping the spelling (nearly) the same and having it pronounced that way (Jefri - so your name will start with a y sound) or changing the spelling to keep the sound. Something like Ĝefrio, perhaps. Because we're nouns, it makes sense that our names be nouns, so it's seemingly customary to end a name with an -o. (Allowances seem to be made for female names to end with -a).

Here's the Esperanto Society of Chicago's take on it: Nomoj.

That said, my given name is Karen, which I've always heard pronounced Esperanto-wise, as my parents are German (same vowel sounds, same rolled r), but I wanted to avoid being called Kareno (sounds too masculine to me), so I preemptively changed it to Karena. In fact, I like that version of my name enough that, were I young enough to do such things without it seeming affected, I'd change my everyday name to Karena. Ah, the privileges of youth.

Thanks for the help. I like the sound of Ĝefrio

Remembering of course that if EO had a country, it'd be fine to call yourself an EO name, but that'd be more of a nickname, and your real name would be the legal one and the one you'd be formally addressed by. Unless you changed your name legally .

So, I'd call myself Christian in Esperantujo. Of course, the way I pronounce my name would be strange in Esperanto, since "kwrisĝin" ("wr" my laymans way of transcribing the English "R", or a "w" coloured Northern European sounding alveolar approximate) doesn't look anything like "Christian".

So I'm stuck between my native pronunciation, "Kristiano" (the "standard" translation), and "Krisĝ'n". Goodbye Esperanto stress rules!

I know plenty of people who aren't called by their legal name, even in relatively formal setting (such as in important meetings in the office). Some people, I cannot even find properly in the office address book because their legal name is in the address book but everyone calls them by their preferred name, including in every single meeting and correspondence.

Like, if their name were Flondersnorp Andrew Smith, and I know the guy as Andrew Smith, I can't find them in the address book, which likely has them listed as Flondersnorp A. Smith, whereas the poor man with the embarrassing name signs his e-mails as F. Andrew Smith (made up that name, in case anyone is wondering).

I find that in some countries people are more flexible with their names than others, and I think that if Esperanto were a "country", it would be that sort. I spent a (very) little time in an office in Switzerland and I noticed that people there definitely had multiple names depending on what language they were speaking. A man would be Patrick, Patrique, or Patrizio depending on what language people were speaking to him with. There was also a woman who was addressed by three different variants on her name, depending on the language being spoken.

I am sure that one of those was the legal name on the birth certificate but I couldn't tell you which one.

I guess I'm personally inclined to follow the Swiss model and give someone a variant pronunciation of my name that's easier to pronounce in the local language. My name seems very simple but the English short i can seem confusing for speakers of some European languages, so I often give a local pronunciation of my name ("eh-reen", with a rolled R) rather than the regular English pronunciation with the American R and the short i. People have trouble hearing that R and the American short i can be confused for several different vowels by a non-native speaker.

Nothing makes you feel more foreign than when you have a simple name that "everyone" knows, and you're in a foreign country and you are asked to repeat your name several times because no one has heard your name before and they are having trouble hearing the sounds and pronouncing it. I try to reduce these problems by giving them a version of my name that can be digested in the local language.

It's a bit more complicated in some languages. For example, half of my name is in fact a grammatical ending (Vil+ius). The name is not especially difficult to pronounce, except for being called Vilnius, which I don't mind, or Viljus which I almost got used to. However I can't think of a good way to convert it to Esperanto. "Viliuso" sounds a bit ugly and technically it has two endings. "Vilo" is also not an option as it's an existing Esperanto word which, according to the Reta Vortaro, has something to do with hair and stomach

I don't think I want to know what "vilo" means now after that hint of a definition there (I honestly can't think of what hair and stomaches have to do with each other, but it sounds like something scary)

Vilius, I hope you don't mind me asking, but I got curious reading your post - are "vilnius" and "viljus" both forms of your name (e.g. grammatical case/pet names), or just mispronunciations (e.g. for me tristian and christen)? (I honestly thought that "-ius" would have been pronounced "-jus", my bad! (We can blame Latin for that one )). I don't know any Lithuanian or Latvian or any baltic language at all, so I have no idea how the case system there works

@ Erinja:
Your post reminded me of Indonesia and a few other nearby countries, where having a last name isn't necessary an omnipresent phenomenon

Well my ex-Chinese girlfriend had an English name, and a Chinese name - She adopted the English name so that us silly westerners (as she used to say) could actually remember her name btw she choose Jody which I absolutely thought was a terrible girls name, maybe that’s why it didn't work out =P

Also I use Riĉardo at all the Esperanto meetings in which I attend, personally because I think it looks exotic with the circumflex, and I don’t like the Esperanto Rikardo, which sounds like one of those doggy Spanish pool boys you hear about in those seedy porno’s

If I were named Vilius I'd go with Vilo in Esperanto. Who cares if it's also a word? This is one of those instances where the word's meaning is so different from a name that no one could possibly confuse the two.

You could also put on a nickname suffix and go as Vilĉjo, though people might think that your actual name was Vilhelmo in that case, since Vilhelmo is the most common name that produces the nickname Vilĉjo.

I would never pronounce Vilius as "viljus" though; Latin would have taught me to pronounce the i and the u separately, like in "filius" (definitely not pronounced "filjus")

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I often found that Asian people choosing English names ended up with unusual names, often because they were trying to pick something that sounded a little like their real name. Eun-Ni calls herself Eunice, Jing calls herself Jean, etc. Unfortunately they usually end up picking a name without help from a native speaker, so they have no way of knowing the connotations that accompany their name, and by the time they know English well enough to pick up on these things, it's too late to change their name!